The Pelican Brief

The Pelican Brief is a good time filler.

I took four sessions to finish the 420-odd pages, and didn't feel pressed for time - it is a rapid read.

The plot is sort of realistic in that you can imagine someone wanting to bump off a couple of American Supreme Court justices to change the `political' make-up of the Supreme court - but the book does stretch credibility a little with the descriptions and personalities of both the victims and their executioner - it seemed as though Gresham had gone through a check list of `most likely to make a best seller' qualities and selected them for inclusion.

The same too with his heroine, Darby Shaw, who is a least female and intelligent - more intelligent than most of the other characters in the book. However, she never really escapes the cliché of female as victim in need of a good man to support her. Why did she have to be a blond bombshell? Why couldn't she have been short, stumpy even, and ugly? Why does the book have to end in such a `happy ever after' way on a beach?

One answer is the sales figures - and film rights.

All the way through I felt I was getting exactly what I wanted - no surprise other than a needed plot twist, no truly ambiguous character - just good guy and bad guy (and a very obvious - you got it wrong, good guy portrayed as bad).

And some very film-able locations - including Washington, New York and a pre-deluge New Orleans.

It occupied me pleasantly enough, but I ended with a - that's it? and so what? Turned the light off, and slept well.

Corrupt Lawyers Act on Behalf of a Corrupt Client to Manipulate Corrupt Politicians and Be Chased by Investigative Reporters (0/0 people found this helpful)

If you are thinking about going to law school, this wouldn't be a bad novel to read to get a sense of what the profession is all about before you commit yourself to three expensive (and potentially boring) years of education. I don't recall a book that displays so many of the corrupt sides of legal practice and education in a single fictional tale. If that weren't enough, the book also delves deeply into the international assassination genre and creates a modern-day fictional version of investigating a government cover-up at the highest levels, a la Watergate.

But a pure heart among all the jaded ones can make a difference . . . that's the morale of this story as beautiful, dedicated, and brilliant law student Darby Shaw speculates on what motive might tie the assassination of two Supreme Court justices back to a pending legal case. Improbably (the weakest part of the story), she sniffs out the potential that no one else does -- that this is an attempt to fix an appeal.

The Pelican Brief as a title is a misnomer. Darby writes her thoughts (a crude essay, not a brief) about what might be going on and shares them with her professor lover who passes them along to a counsel for the FBI. Pretty soon someone is taking her ideas seriously, and the pages will fly through your fingers as fast as you can read until you get to the end.

John Grisham doesn't quite have his genres down in this book, and apparently the success of The Firm meant that his editors were more interested in getting The Pelican Brief published than making it better. You could fix this novel into a five-star effort with about two hours of editing to reduce the improbabilities and speed up the slow parts.

But if you don't mind having unlikely events pull a riveting story together, you'll have a lot of fun with The Pelican Brief. I listened to the reading by Alexander Adams and felt that the story worked better listened to than it would be if read silently.

I admire John Grisham for the imagination to conceive of such a wild story. He kept surprising me with his plot developments, and the trip was almost all fun.

A mixture of Grishams (0/0 people found this helpful)

There seem to be three Grishams writing this book:

1. The long-winded Grisham who includes lots of superfluous dialogue when he hasn't given you enough info to connect it to the actual plot.
2. The slightly seedy, sordid, Grisham who hints at all sorts of nefarious goings-on.
3. the Grisham who writes exciting, pacy, action in a page-turning style.

Once you get past Grishams 1 and 2, you get a fun novel that really grips you to the end of the story, but this one is really not as good as 'The Street Lawyer' or 'The Firm'. Grisham fans will want to read it anyway, others might not want to bother.

What a read! (1/1 people found this helpful)

Pelican Brief by John Grisham.

Two Supreme Court Justices are murdered. Their deaths are linked in one way, and this way is told in one legal brief.

Darby Shaw is a determined law student. One speculative legal brief she writes could cause shockwaves in Washington. When her partner is then atomised in a devastating car bomb she realises that the brief is much closer to the truth than she thought. There is only one man she can trust, a reporter named Gray Grantham.

Gray is no more nearer to the truth than she is. He'd been receiving mysterious phone calls from anonymous lawyers and needed to find out more. They eventually meet up. They then set off to find the whole truth about the brief and manage several times wriggle out of danger.

If you enjoy suspense or thrillers, I guarantee you will enjoy this novel. Although it may get slightly confusing during the 1st half when there are 2 or 3 storylines it still is a very compelling read. The pelican brief is certainly a good fiction of the type a select few are capable of writing.

Intense and pacey. (0/0 people found this helpful)

I really enjoyed this book. It is a story which has you gripped from a very early stage.

There are numerous threads of the story which are crafted well into one another as the story progresses. The number of threads adds to the pace of the story, with the reader easily able to keep up with each set of characters, and thier roles in the outcome. The writing is clear, relevant and flows easily, all of which contribute to why it's so difficult to put the book down. The characters are descibed well and are easy to remember which makes it easy for the reader for follow numerous threads as they evolve and merge.

This book also gives an interesting insight into the power and vulnerability of those at the top of the food chain, where the reader feels like they know a bit more about the president's life than when they started the book.

I would definately recommend this book to anyone looking for an exciting thriller. I have not seen the film, but it is clear as you read on that this is definatley a book written to be made into a movie.

Buy it.

John Grisham

Reader Reviews:

A Time Filler (0/0 people found this helpful)

Corrupt Lawyers Act on Behalf of a Corrupt Client to Manipulate Corrupt Politicians and Be Chased by Investigative Reporters (0/0 people found this helpful)

A mixture of Grishams (0/0 people found this helpful)

What a read! (1/1 people found this helpful)

Intense and pacey. (0/0 people found this helpful)

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